


Xs and Os

by h0ldthiscat



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 23:29:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5845126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h0ldthiscat/pseuds/h0ldthiscat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re not ticklish at all?” Mulder asks, pushing the sheet the rest of the way down the bed and hovering over her body, facedown in sheets rumpled from the evening’s activities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xs and Os

“Not even a little bit?”

“No, so don’t even try.” She lifts her chin proudly, almost childishly, and flashes him a toothy smile. 

“You’re not ticklish at all?” Mulder asks, pushing the sheet the rest of the way down the bed and hovering over her body, facedown in sheets rumpled from the evening’s activities. 

“I was tickled so much as a child that the tickles have, in fact, been tickled out of me.” She says it the same tone she uses to say things like _pulmonary embolectomy_ and _pronounced psychosis._

“Not on your feet?” He runs a finger up and down the soles of each of her feet. She kicks him away. “Not on your calves?” He opens his palm over the smooth skin of her leg, massaging a little.

She groans a muffled assent. “That’s nice.”

He sweeps up the backs of her thighs and she shivers, tucking her arms in closer to her body.

“What was that?” Mulder asks proudly, laying his chest flat against her back. 

“That’s called arousal, Mulder, perhaps you’ve heard of it,” she deadpans, but he can feel her squirm underneath him. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he says, repeating the motion, working up and down her thighs in broad strokes, his long fingers kneading her soft, taut skin. 

She lets out a loud, barking laugh that’s dampened by the pillow. “That’s not surprising, it only took you seven years to make a move…”

“And what do you think I was doing during that time?” he asks, leaning in close to whisper in her ear, his torso nearly touching her bare back. “You don’t think I knew what arousal was?” He nudges her ear with his nose, then presses against her and bites her earlobe.

She hisses. “Jesus.” Involuntarily, she bucks up against him, and his hands fly to her waist to steady himself above her. She giggles a little bit.

“What was that?” he asks, laving her neck and shoulders with quick kisses. “Did I find your ticklish spot?”

“No!” she insists, propping herself up on her elbows and pouting over her shoulder. 

“I think I did.” Mulder grins and wiggles his fingers around her waist, making her jerk.

“I’m not ticklish!” she insists, trying to push his hands away. 

“I doubt that will hold up in court, Agent Scully.”

“Who says we’re going to court?” she huffs defiantly. She wriggles out from underneath him and sits up, letting the bedsheet pool in her lap but leaving her torso exposed. 

“We’ll have to if you keep using Bureau time to send me love notes,” He rolls back to his side of the bed and digs through the notebook that sits there.

“Love notes?” she all but shrieks. “Mulder, what are you even talking about?”

He pulls out the boxy scrap of paper he’d been using as a bookmark, written on a drab FBI notepad, and reads aloud, “Mulder--stuck in meetings all afternoon, see you tonight. X, Scully.”

“How is that a love note?” She leans across the bed and grabs it from him, turning it over in her hands. 

“I was more considering the authorial intent as opposed to the apparent content,” he sighs, leaning back against the headboard. 

“Authorial intent, huh?” she teases. “How do you figure?”

“Well this _X_ here before your signature, I can only assume that it’s an _X_ of _x_ and _o_. As in hugs and kisses.”

“And not _X_ for the X Files, the division where we work?”

“Why would you sign a note _X Files, Scully_?”

She shrugs, looking adorable. “I’ve been known to do stranger things.”

“You certainly have,” he agrees, snatching the note back and pouncing on her again, making her squeal with laughter. This time his hands go immediately to her waist and he tickles.

“Mulder!” she cries, laughing more loudly than he’s ever heard her laugh. It’s a beautiful sound, full and echoey and so akin to pure joy that he can’t help but start to laugh himself.

He settles on top of her and kisses her soundly, stilling his hands and moving them to cup her face, to sweep his thumb across the delicate swell of her cheekbone. When he breaks the kiss he rolls to lie beside her, tracing his fingers across the flat plane of her abdomen. 

“That was nice,” she says, her voice warm like it is after laughter. “You’re nice.”

“You’re so beautiful.” He means it more than he’s ever meant anything.

She closes her eyes and hums a thank you, then takes his hands in hers and pulls them to her chest, clasped and resting just between her breasts, close enough to feel her heartbeat.


End file.
